Conservatives to vote against PBO nominee Annette Ryan, who promised to remain independent. The Liberal government's nominee to be the next fiscal watchdog insists she'll run an independent and non-partisan ship — even though her candidacy has created a political rift. Senior public servant Annette Ryan appeared before the House finance committee Monday afternoon as part of the nomination process...
Prime Minister Mark Carney's office says public servants are correcting information the government tabled in Parliament that suggested he did not "proactively" raise human rights or foreign interference during his visit to Beijing. Carney met in January with Chinese President Xi Jinping and told reporters at the end of his visit to Beijing that he had spoken with Xi about...
Party determined to speak about priority issues like affordability, says Steve Outhouse. The federal Conservative Party's campaign manager is shrugging off polls showing the Liberals hold a double-digit lead over the Tories — while Pierre Poilievre says he's broadening his image but won't change who he is. "Polls are polls, and they do what polls do," Steve Outhouse said in...
As Mark Carney hits his one-year mark as prime minister and the Liberals reach their strongest levels of support in a decade, polls show the party could win more than 200 seats if an election were held now. But, pollsters caution that events such as a potential recession, rising gas prices linked to the United States-Israeli attack on Iran, and...
Aviation officials say two Air Canada pilots were killed late Sunday when their flight from Montreal crashed into a rescue vehicle on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Kathryn Garcia with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says 41 people were taken to hospital and that 32 have since been released. She says nine people remain...
A new national survey from Liaison Strategies shows Mark Carney’s Liberal Party continuing a 14 point lead over the Conservatives led by Pierre Poilievre. The Weekly Federal Tracker reveals that the Liberals now hold 46% of decided and leaning support, followed by the Conservatives at 32% and the NDP at 9%. Liaison surveyed a random sample of 1,000 Canadians from...
Canadian consumer confidence continues to slide and is moving from a somewhat positive position towards neutrality. Of note the four-week decline in consumer confidence in the Prairies has been greater than other regions.
If you lay on the beach on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, warming your northern skin and admiring the play of the sun on the waves, you can sip pina coladas made from beautiful local pineapple juice, and when you want a snack, you can pay a few pesos for a little bag of brown Spanish peanuts from...
There are many ways that governments can be defeated, from self-inflicted scandals and political corruption to their failure to respond to broader global trends and events. But few things will bring a government to its knees faster than unchecked food price inflation. The surge of post-COVID inflation and the impact it had on grocery bills transformed the politics in most...
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says gun owners have reported more than 51,000 firearms to the federal government with one week left to go in a program to provide compensation for banned guns. The figure is well short of the 136,000 firearms for which the government set aside money when the buyback program for individual owners opened in January. Anandasanagree...
Canada can protect rules-based international trade and resist pressure from superpowers by working more with the Americas, shoring up supply chains and strengthening economic ties, Costa Rica's trade minister said on a recent visit to Ottawa. "We share the same vision of the type of world that we would like to live in," Manuel Tovar Rivera said in an interview...
I have an urgent request for Prime Minister Mark Carney: please come to Vaughan, Ont., to meet with our Jewish community. As Vaughan’s mayor, I want you to know that Jews here feel angry, scared, defiant, tired, shocked and beleaguered. Who can blame them? I’ve lived my entire life in this country, but I have never before witnessed the shocking...
Despite some blemishes on Mark Carney’s otherwise immaculate image, his personal approval ratings are off the charts. If an election were held tomorrow, the Liberals would win north of 200 seats. Here's why.
Marjorie Harris and Michael Hughes are deadlocked, with net favourability scores of +1. The thing is, they are made up names for an experiment. Ever since I started working in public opinion research (back in the early 1980’s) I was keen to know about the sources of bias that can creep into research unless care is taken in survey design.
From the moment that Donald Trump first started talking about Canada as the 51st state, all sorts of people have debated whether the president was joking or serious. The answer, it seems, is both, and we learned that this week when Pierre Poilievre sat down for an epically long conversation with the right-wing American podcaster Joe Rogan.
We live in an increasingly uncertain world. Amid trade wars, hot wars, geopolitical conflicts, and rising oil prices, the disruption-and-destruction rap sheet of the second Trump administration grows longer by the day. As Prime Minister Mark Carney said during his now-famous Davos Speech on January 20, as a middle power, Canada must adapt to this challenging new context. Yet, despite...
What in heaven’s name is going on in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government with regard to the threat posed to Canada’s national security by India?
If Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had asked me whether he should go on Joe Rogan’s podcast in the United States this week, I would have told him, “No.” I would have been wrong. Poilievre’s appearance on the world’s No. 1 podcast may well mark the moment when he began turning around Canadian voters’ impression of him.
Sometime during the evening of April 13th, Mark Carney will quite likely find out that his majority in the House of Commons is secure. The results of the upcoming federal by-elections in University-Rosedale and Scarborough West in Toronto will confirm that. If, a few hours later, a Liberal victory in the Montreal-adjacent riding of Terrebonne is also confirmed, that will...
In his first year as prime minister, Mark Carney was restless. Two days after being sworn in at Rideau Hall, he made official visits to France and the United Kingdom. Shortly thereafter he went into a five-week election campaign, and a week after last spring's vote he travelled to Washington. In the months since, Carney has been to Belgium, the...
Pierre Poilievre arrived for his long-rumoured-and-finally-realized appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience bearing hefty baggage. The Conservative Leader presented Mr. Rogan with a 70-lb kettlebell created by a Calgary company that specializes in bespoke alterations to guns and knives. Before the episode even aired on Thursday, Mr. Poilievre’s office sent out a statement containing what I can only describe as...
It’s not true to say that the end justifies the means. Neither is it true that it never does. The true statement is: some ends justify some means. A lot of people who ought to know better seem to have persuaded themselves that the U.S.-Israel war on Iran (in? against? with?) is a case of the end justifying the means...
Members of Parliament are allowed to switch parties, and pretending otherwise just makes you sound weak. There is a thing that happens in sports sometimes when a coach or a player, after a tough defeat, refuses to accept that they might be at fault. They blame the officials, or a busy schedule, or a brutal stretch of injuries. Or maybe...
Pierre Poilievre’s interview with podcast giant Joe Rogan began on-theme, with the Conservative party leader gifting the skeptical-yet-gullible interviewer with a red maple leaf emblazoned 70-pound kettlebell, and stayed in the zone for the next two-and-a-half hours. The marathon chat managed to broach policy, personality, and puffery, sometimes simultaneously. And it was, if not particularly enlightening, fairly endearing. And equally...
Let’s talk for a moment about the scale of Canada’s ambition and how it compares to the scale of what we can plausibly achieve. Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced major plans for Arctic infrastructure. Much of the $35 billion budgeted for them will be used to expand and upgrade existing military facilities; these, in theory, will increase the...
Canada is shrinking. For far back as records have been kept, and probably much farther, this country’s population grew year after year, seemingly inexorably. Until 2025. On Wednesday, Statistics Canada released figures for the fourth quarter, which estimated that Canada’s population declined by 102,436 people over the course of last year.
Manitoba has just become the first jurisdiction in Canada to introduce legislation that would make it an unfair practice for suppliers to charge higher prices based on algorithmic pricing. Bill 49 is aimed at preventing retailers from using personal data, such as purchasing history, to set higher individualized prices. Vass Bednar, managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute, which promotes...
When I was in the first grade, my hometown junior hockey team, the Granby Bisons, played the team from Trois-Rivières. After trailing Trois-Rivières for a while, Granby had finally managed to tie the game. Trois-Rivières decided to change up their goalie and put Mannon Rhéaume in net. My little, six-year-old mind was blown. A girl! Playing hockey! With boys...
Two recent tweets by Donald Trump on Truth Social reflect a dangerous unravelling of his Middle East war strategy, to the extent that there was one. The first is about the refusal of many countries to send military personnel or equipment as part of operation “Epic Fury”: “The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that...
In a competition for the prize of most wonderful irony ever, there is a strong candidate. How about the turn of events that has seen the most lethal, destructive force mankind ever created, nuclear weapons, becoming the greatest preserver of peace? Prior to 1945, major wars between great powers occurred about every 20 or 30 years. This era ended when...
A Liberal majority looks all but inevitable. Three Conservative MPs and one New Democrat having crossed the floor, the Liberals now have 170 seats out of 343 in the House. A probable sweep of the three by-elections scheduled for April 13 would leave them with 173, enough to outvote the combined opposition even without the help of the Speaker. That’s...
The Conservatives knew what they were doing – well, sort of – when they announced a petition to nominate former hockey commentator Don Cherry to the Order of Canada. It’s a great cultural wedge issue: one that pits the millions of Canadians with fond memories of Coach’s Corner against the ostensibly smaller cohort of Canadians who still begrudge Mr. Cherry...
If you’re a political nerd like me (and if you’re reading this, you clearly are), you enjoy a good by-election night. They’re a fun little pitstop between general elections - a chance to get a sense of where the parties actually stand. Sometimes they tell you a lot, sometimes they tell you nothing at all, but they tell you SOMETHING...
It may have taken him more than a year, but Pierre Poilievre has finally come up with an answer to US President Donald Trump. In his ongoing attempt to pivot away from the pompous petulance that had defined his brand of politics, the Conservative leader tried something other than attacking the government. Instead, he proposed a solution to the trade...
A significant corner was turned this week when many nations, including Canada, said no to Donald Trump. It’s a word that hasn’t been said often enough as this president runs his second term, defying all challengers and asserting that he wins all battles he wages.
President Donald Trump’s late-night musing about Venezuela potentially becoming the 51st state was likely well received in the Prime Minister’s Office. It suggests that Mark Carney’s speech in Davos — widely viewed as standing up to the bully president — has persuaded Trump to move on and find an easier target than Canada or Greenland. That may be temporary, of...
A new report from Canada’s auditor general found reforms to the international student program “fell short” on improving integrity, including only investigating a small number of potentially problematic cases flagged by post secondary institutions. The report, tabled in the House of Commons Monday morning, found that out of 153,324 potentially non-compliant students reported by schools to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship...
Members of Parliament continued debate on the government's contentious hate crimes bill Monday after they returned to Ottawa following a break week that saw both the Liberal and Conservative leaders on international trips. The Liberals have passed a motion to impose a time limit on debate for Bill C-9, which would define hatred in criminal law for the first time...
Canada's auditor general says the federal government is running out of time to clear the backlog of public service pay transactions under the old Phoenix system to avoid infecting the new system with errors. The federal government is working to replace the error-prone Phoenix with a new system, Dayforce, and all departments and agencies are expected to move to the...
$529M deal became target of scrutiny after Stellantis announced Brampton plant ‘pause.’ The multi-million-dollar deal at the heart of a high-profile fight between the Canadian government and one of the world’s biggest carmakers contains multiple clauses about the company’s footprint in Ontario, according to a copy obtained by CBC Windsor. The contract for up to $529 million in public funding...
Canada and the rest of the democratic world are facing a “tsunami” of transnational and digital repression with the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S., the arrival of artificial intelligence and a softening of attitudes on human rights, according to a respected Canadian cyber-research group. The director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global...
Ottawa's choice for the next federal fiscal watchdog is set to face questions from MPs before she can be confirmed as the next parliamentary budget officer. Annette Ryan, a longtime public servant and the current deputy director at Canada's financial intelligence agency, Fintrac, was named as cabinet's pick to become the next parliamentary budget officer earlier this month.
This week lands between the Bank of Canada's last interest rate decision and next week's GDP report.
Three byelections are being held on April 13 and the results could have an impact on both the makeup of Parliament and how long it lasts. Here's a primer on how things could change.
A federal public servant says she's "scared" to take up the government's early retirement offer after being told that she owes the government about $10,500 because of a mistake in her pay file. Jennifer MacDougall got the letter from the pay centre in February but said the situation itself stems back to between 2014 and 2018. MacDougall was working in...
Canadians’ affection for the United States tends to rise and fall with whoever’s in the White House. It dropped for president George W. Bush, rose for Barack Obama, and then plunged during Donald Trump’s first term, only to rise again with Joe Biden. In the first year of Trump’s second presidency, however, Canada’s fondness for its southern neighbour has plumbed...
On a debate stage in Vancouver last month, Heather McPherson tried to narrow the choice facing New Democrats in the weakened party’s leadership race. “We are New Democrats, and we all believe in fairness, in equity, in looking out for your neighbour,” McPherson, the only MP in the race, said to party faithful. “So this race isn’t about debating those...
Conservative campaign manager Steve Outhouse says leader Pierre Poilievre arranged his appearance on the hugely popular Joe Rogan podcast himself. During his first U.S. tour since becoming Conservative leader, Poilievre made stops in Michigan, Texas and New York City this week, and sat down to record a more-than-two-hour podcast episode with Joe Rogan. The episode, which dropped Thursday, is set...
Canadians living abroad are calling for increased turnout among overseas voters and arguing that barriers to casting a ballot could be affecting election results. Timothy Veale, the director of Grits Abroad -- an organization aimed at connecting Canadian Liberal voters living worldwide -- said nearly five million Canadians live outside the country and roughly 3.5 million of them are eligible...
Ontario's legislature is set to resume sitting Monday after a 14-week break that ended in a veritable deluge of news, partial proposals and headline-grabbing musings from Premier Doug Ford and his government. It is a flood-the-zone strategy, opposition parties say, in an attempt to drown out criticism over a government plan to keep records of cabinet ministers and the premier...
Ottawa's nominee for federal fiscal watchdog will face questions from members of Parliament on Monday after a turbulent period for the budget office. Annette Ryan, a longtime public servant and currently a deputy director at Canada's financial intelligence agency, Fintrac, was named as cabinet's pick to be the next parliamentary budget officer earlier this month. Ryan's nomination, which must be...
Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada informed organizations receiving money through the Strategic Science Fund late last month that it will cut $20-million from the $800-million fund as a part of the government’s plan to reduce spending. The decision affects 17 of the 19 organizations that will be funded until 2028-29 and have had contribution agreements in place since May...
President Donald Trump took to social media Saturday to celebrate the death of Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who famously led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
QUEBEC -- The first debate in the race to succeed Quebec Premier Francois Legault as leader of the Coalition Avenir Quebec took place in Quebec City, with candidates Christine Frechette and Bernard Drainville facing off.
Federal departments and agencies are looking to cut more than 12,000 full-time equivalent jobs over the next three years as part of the Carney government's spending review. That figure comes from plans released by federal departments and agencies for 2026-27 outlining how they'll shed billions of dollars to meet the government's cost-cutting targets. Multiple part-time positions can make up one...
Four of the five federal NDP leadership candidates say they won't be in a hurry to enter the House of Commons if they win -- a position the only MP in the race calls "a little bit odd." Filmmaker Avi Lewis said if he is chosen as the new NDP leader next week, his main priority will be to prepare...
French deterrence in North America would risk inflaming tensions with Washington. A very quiet queue has formed in Europe where some of Canada's long-standing, closest allies are seeking shelter under France's small but robust nuclear umbrella. The initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron, who declared the next 50 years to be the "era of nuclear weapons," is — on paper...
Lewis touts 'tremendous momentum,' McPherson vows to continue rebuilding party. With one week until New Democrats choose a new federal leader, the front-runner in the race says he's preparing a transition team and hopes his campaign machinery can be used in the next election. "We've had tremendous momentum on our campaign, even as the party in Parliament is at an...
Conservative leader told multiple outlets he's forged a 'respectful' relationship with PM. They may be bitter rivals in the House of Commons, but outside the chamber, recent events may have led to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Prime Minister Mark Carney forging a bond. In recent interviews, Poilievre has said he is communicating regularly with Carney to present a united...
OTTAWA -- Intelligence and cybersecurity experts are warning the Liberal government about national security risks posed by allowing Chinese electric vehicles onto Canadian military bases.
OTTAWA -- Canadian Armed Forces members are among the NATO personnel who have left Iraq as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drags on.
The Ontario government's push to cap resale ticket prices for events across the province might not be much help to fans. Experts worry the proposed legislation the government announced Friday will be unenforceable, drive up the original price of tickets and lure people into riskier transactions. The province positioned the move as a way to tamp down on resellers who...
A violent extremist attack against Canada’s Jewish community is a “realistic possibility” in the next six months, the federal Integrated Threat Assessment Centre warns in a report obtained by The Globe and Mail. ITAC, which is a specialized organization in the Canadian intelligence community, also said it is unlikely that “Iranian lethal operations” in Canada would target Jewish public officials...
The majority-women slate of candidates in the three upcoming federal byelections is an encouraging development for gender equality in politics after a troubling plateau over the past three federal elections, advocates say.
The federal government has outlined criteria under which Canada would help partners in the Middle East endangered by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Ottawa has said it is looking at helping Gulf nations and might contribute to efforts to unblock fuel shipments -- but it hasn't explained what this might involve, beyond stressing that it has no intention of joining...
The Conservative leader went on the most popular podcast in the United States yesterday and kept the conversation going for more than two hours and twenty minutes. And if you believe Bruce and Chantal he did very well. Will it make a difference? Also on Good Talk, the Iran war and America's allies, just where do they, including Canada, stand...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate confirmed Markwayne Mullin as homeland security secretary late Monday, approving President Donald Trump's nominee to take over the embattled department after the firing of Kristi Noem during a public backlash over the administration's immigration enforcement and mass deportation operations.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- President Donald Trump took a surprise tour of Elvis Presley's Graceland on Monday while in Memphis, a diversion from the war in Iran and efforts to address long lines at U.S. airports during which he marveled at just how famous the King of Rock and Roll was and wondered aloud if he could have beaten him...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court 's conservative majority sounds skeptical of state laws that allow the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.
FAIRFIELD, Ohio (AP) -- Although President Donald Trump is the top Democratic nemesis, some of the party's most ambitious leaders are increasingly looking past him and at Vice President JD Vance.
President Donald Trump took to social media Saturday to celebrate the death of Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who famously led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Iran’s top military spokesman has warned that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide won’t be safe for Tehran’s enemies. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi made the threat Friday as Iran continues to be hit by American and Israeli airstrikes. It was likely to renew concerns that as the war goes on, Iran may revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle...
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot is openly mulling the idea of Canada seeking membership in the European Union. Speaking at the Europe 2026 conference in Berlin today, Barrot said the European Union is attracting more candidate countries, such as Iceland, and suggested "maybe Canada at some point" will sign up.
A senior US intelligence official appointed by President Donald Trump abruptly announced he is stepping down from his post on Tuesday, citing misgivings about the administration’s war with Iran. “After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today,” Joe Kent wrote in a post on X.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand spoke out against the “weaponization” of the Strait of Hormuz in the face of an ongoing blockade but offered no specifics on what kind of support Canada is prepared to offer. “There should be no weaponization of international shipping lanes and prevention from countries around the world having the resources that they need,” Anand told...
Economic immigrants selected through the two-step process — first as temporary foreign workers before being permanent residents — generally earn more than those selected directly from abroad. But outcomes vary widely: two-step immigrants with high pre-admission Canadian earnings enjoy substantial and persistent earnings advantages, while those with lower pre-admission earnings often fare worse than one-step immigrants. The findings suggest that...
A one-time northern Ontario fur-trading post, Sault Ste. Marie’s fortunes changed when U.S. industrialist Francis Clergue built a hydroelectric power plant on the banks of the St. Mary’s River more than 100 years ago. The dam brought cheap power to the area and turned it into an industrial hub. Clergue also opened a steel mill, a pulp and paper mill...
Canada is confronting a rapidly expanding illicit nicotine market that has evolved well beyond traditional contraband tobacco. Criminal networks that once focused on cigarettes now traffic in high-nicotine disposable vapes, unauthorized nicotine pouches, and a sprawling ecosystem of online black market platforms. Fragmented regulation, uneven enforcement, and the rise of e-commerce have created structural vulnerabilities that illicit actors are exploiting...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Canadian troops may be only days away from deploying to the Middle East to aid the U.S.’s and Israel’s war on Iran. The latest indication is a joint statement expressing concern about Iran’s restriction of oil tankers through the narrow Strait of Hormuz signed by Prime Minister Mark Carney and NATO allies late in the week.
Canadians who have neglected to pay their taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have been coming forward in droves to take advantage of new amnesty rules.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s spurious excuses for gutting the province’s freedom-of-information (FOI) law are exactly why we need transparency legislation in the first place: governments are habitual liars. Last week, the Ford government said it plans to weaken its sunshine law by erecting brick walls around every minister’s office, including the premier’s. Freedom-of-information requests will no longer be accepted. The...
In a marathon interview, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre discussed tariffs, 51st-state threats, mixed martial arts and kettlebells with popular and controversial podcast host Joe Rogan. Author Paul Wells and Globe and Mail senior reporter Stephanie Levitz break down Poilievre's performance and whether his appearance helps — or hurts — his push to reach more voters.
The Conservative leader went on the most popular podcast in the United States yesterday and kept the conversation going for more than two hours and twenty minutes. And if you believe Bruce and Chantal he did very well. Will it make a difference? Also on Good Talk, the Iran war and America's allies, just where do they, including Canada, stand...
Peter Mazereeuw speaks with senator and former judge Pierre Dalphond about the government's bill to toughen up criminal bail and sentencing rules.
At Issue this week: Will Pierre Poilievre’s Joe Rogan’s podcast appearance help him politically, and what will it do for Canada? How Mark Carney has reshaped the Liberals, one year into his leadership. And Avi Lewis emerges as the NDP frontrunner.
